From Buddy Ebsen to Cher in Six Easy Steps
It is late summer in Canada and my roommates and I (and various boyfriends) take full advantage of it. We have a large backyard patio and a chiminea and every night and weekend we sit out there eating, talking and playing games like we're out at a cottage and not in the middle of a large, congested city. Fortunately for us we have a lot of wildlife in the backyard to help with the illusion: a family of raccoons, a family of skunks, 8000 insane squirrels, 4000 neighbourhood cats, and the occasional dog. (I also find that the hillbilly neighbours are a nice backwoods touch.)
Anyway, lately we've gotten bored with our regular board games (don't tell my boss) and have been making up our own. Even though the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game was in vogue like, what, four years ago? someone mentioned it and we started to play it the other night. But that got boring really quickly. Kevin Bacon has been in everything with everyone.
So, like anyone else who's ever played the game, we tried to make it a little more interesting for us and I said, "yeah, but what about two totally different actors. Like, can we get from Buddy Ebsen to... I don't know... say Cher?" My roommates blinked at me and said "Buddy Ebsen?" (Luckily, I had just bought Breakfast at Tiffany's and knew that Buddy was in it, so at least I had that as a starting point. I have no clue what else the man was in - I do know that he was slated to play the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, though, which is interesting but does not help anyone).
I got from him to Mickey Rooney (who played the unfunny ethnically insulting Japanese neighbour Mr. Yanioshi in B at T's). Then from him I got to Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. From her I got to Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Paul Newman was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Robert Redford (which I can't believe I *still* have not seen). RR was in Up Close & Personal with Michelle Pfeiffer (which I am thankful I still have not seen), who was in The Witches of Eastwick with Cher. See? Six steps, easy as pie. (Of course that took me forever to figure out and almost all my strength not to just Google.)
Everybody and his brother has thought up this game, and done it better than us, but since we just started playing it we still find it entertainingly distracting. It's tempting to think that my knowledge of movie trivia is useful for some purpose instead of just clutter in my brain pushing out the names of loved ones, my social insurance number, gross motor skills, etc.
Anyway, this past weekend we had a yard sale and my roomate's boyfriend brought over a bunch of his junk to sell. In his box of books I found "Leonard Maltin's TV Movies & Video Guide - 1989 Edition". Oooh, baby. Sure, it sounds like maybe we'd be cheating if we used this reference book, but it's not. Why? First of all, it's 14 years out of date. Colin Ferrell isn't even mentioned in it. Secondly, I have a mental block for... whosit. That dude that I always confuse with James Caan. The guy... he was in that movie with Will Smith... not Independence Day, the other one... GOD! What is his... He was in Hoosiers? Hold on, I'll look it up... YES! Gene Hackman! Thank you! So. Like I say, it comes in handy when you know who you're talking about but you're stuck and your head is about to explode.
And lastly, it's helpful to think up people to connect. We just open the book, point to a name, look at it, realize no one has ever heard of that actor (there's a lot of tv movies in it), repeat a couple of times until we find one we know, and carry on. It's all great fun. Well, we think so at least.
If you have not stopped reading this by now and care at all, here is how we play:
1. Two different people pick the names. One person picks the first name, another picks the other. This helps make it more random and evens out the prejudices (e.g. my one roommate will always try to get Matt Dillon in there, whereas my other roommate will always try to connect somehow to John Travolta. Women!)
2. We use exclusively movie actors and movies. Sure you can link Jennifer Aniston to someone, but it's got to be through a movie she was in and not just through a guest star from her television series.
3. You might want to use a piece of paper to help with options of actors and to retrace your steps. It can get a bit complicated at times, and if alcohol is involved the short-term memory is always affected. And, as I say, whenever alcohol is involved the short-term... uh, where was I?
4. If you find that an actor is always coming up to help you link (like Kevin Bacon for example, or Julia Roberts, blast her horse face and scream-y cackle) you can ban him/her from the linking process. Just ban them outright!
5. Often we'll come up with a theme, like spouses or mother/daughter teams. Obviously this does not work if the couple have been in a movie together, but think about it and maybe you can come up with ones that are harder than you'd think they were. Also, you can try two unrelated people with the same last name like Mary Tyler Moore to Roger Moore or Linda Hamilton to George Hamilton. For fun!
Okay, I realize this post was pretty fluffy, but damn. I've been so cranky for my last couple of posts I thought it might be a nice change to have me not swearing and spewing hatred like an off-camera game show host. So hugs all around!! Kisses, too!!
(Now fuck off, will ya?)
It is late summer in Canada and my roommates and I (and various boyfriends) take full advantage of it. We have a large backyard patio and a chiminea and every night and weekend we sit out there eating, talking and playing games like we're out at a cottage and not in the middle of a large, congested city. Fortunately for us we have a lot of wildlife in the backyard to help with the illusion: a family of raccoons, a family of skunks, 8000 insane squirrels, 4000 neighbourhood cats, and the occasional dog. (I also find that the hillbilly neighbours are a nice backwoods touch.)
Anyway, lately we've gotten bored with our regular board games (don't tell my boss) and have been making up our own. Even though the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game was in vogue like, what, four years ago? someone mentioned it and we started to play it the other night. But that got boring really quickly. Kevin Bacon has been in everything with everyone.
So, like anyone else who's ever played the game, we tried to make it a little more interesting for us and I said, "yeah, but what about two totally different actors. Like, can we get from Buddy Ebsen to... I don't know... say Cher?" My roommates blinked at me and said "Buddy Ebsen?" (Luckily, I had just bought Breakfast at Tiffany's and knew that Buddy was in it, so at least I had that as a starting point. I have no clue what else the man was in - I do know that he was slated to play the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, though, which is interesting but does not help anyone).
I got from him to Mickey Rooney (who played the unfunny ethnically insulting Japanese neighbour Mr. Yanioshi in B at T's). Then from him I got to Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. From her I got to Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Paul Newman was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Robert Redford (which I can't believe I *still* have not seen). RR was in Up Close & Personal with Michelle Pfeiffer (which I am thankful I still have not seen), who was in The Witches of Eastwick with Cher. See? Six steps, easy as pie. (Of course that took me forever to figure out and almost all my strength not to just Google.)
Everybody and his brother has thought up this game, and done it better than us, but since we just started playing it we still find it entertainingly distracting. It's tempting to think that my knowledge of movie trivia is useful for some purpose instead of just clutter in my brain pushing out the names of loved ones, my social insurance number, gross motor skills, etc.
Anyway, this past weekend we had a yard sale and my roomate's boyfriend brought over a bunch of his junk to sell. In his box of books I found "Leonard Maltin's TV Movies & Video Guide - 1989 Edition". Oooh, baby. Sure, it sounds like maybe we'd be cheating if we used this reference book, but it's not. Why? First of all, it's 14 years out of date. Colin Ferrell isn't even mentioned in it. Secondly, I have a mental block for... whosit. That dude that I always confuse with James Caan. The guy... he was in that movie with Will Smith... not Independence Day, the other one... GOD! What is his... He was in Hoosiers? Hold on, I'll look it up... YES! Gene Hackman! Thank you! So. Like I say, it comes in handy when you know who you're talking about but you're stuck and your head is about to explode.
And lastly, it's helpful to think up people to connect. We just open the book, point to a name, look at it, realize no one has ever heard of that actor (there's a lot of tv movies in it), repeat a couple of times until we find one we know, and carry on. It's all great fun. Well, we think so at least.
If you have not stopped reading this by now and care at all, here is how we play:
1. Two different people pick the names. One person picks the first name, another picks the other. This helps make it more random and evens out the prejudices (e.g. my one roommate will always try to get Matt Dillon in there, whereas my other roommate will always try to connect somehow to John Travolta. Women!)
2. We use exclusively movie actors and movies. Sure you can link Jennifer Aniston to someone, but it's got to be through a movie she was in and not just through a guest star from her television series.
3. You might want to use a piece of paper to help with options of actors and to retrace your steps. It can get a bit complicated at times, and if alcohol is involved the short-term memory is always affected. And, as I say, whenever alcohol is involved the short-term... uh, where was I?
4. If you find that an actor is always coming up to help you link (like Kevin Bacon for example, or Julia Roberts, blast her horse face and scream-y cackle) you can ban him/her from the linking process. Just ban them outright!
5. Often we'll come up with a theme, like spouses or mother/daughter teams. Obviously this does not work if the couple have been in a movie together, but think about it and maybe you can come up with ones that are harder than you'd think they were. Also, you can try two unrelated people with the same last name like Mary Tyler Moore to Roger Moore or Linda Hamilton to George Hamilton. For fun!
Okay, I realize this post was pretty fluffy, but damn. I've been so cranky for my last couple of posts I thought it might be a nice change to have me not swearing and spewing hatred like an off-camera game show host. So hugs all around!! Kisses, too!!
(Now fuck off, will ya?)
posted by Alanis at
11:34 PM
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